Sir David Walker's review into corporate governance in financial services was met with surly approval from the industry last week. Many bankers feel aggrieved at being blamed for the crisis, but are smart enough to recognise that, given the scale of public anger, Sir David let them off lightly. Bonuses survived his scrutiny unscathed.

But bonuses are not the whole story. Much of the report focuses on the inadequacy of systems supposed to hold company boards to account: non-executive directors are absent or in thrall to powerful chief executives; there is a lack of expertise to scrutinise complex transactions – such that Sir David felt the need (recommendation No 8) to suggest that the chairman of a bank board should know something about banking.

But the greatest failure is that of shareholders to exercise their rights and fulfil their duties as owners of a company. Big institutional shareholders – the pension and insurance funds that many of us feed – are especially remiss.

That is not just a weakness in the financial system. Consider, for example, the influence of big supermarkets on the high street. Given the power that large listed companies wield in our lives, it is bad for democracy when the most fundamental mechanism of corporate accountability malfunctions.

While it is taken for granted that politicians will defend their actions in TV studios and face elections, there is no equivalent pressure on chief executives. And while parties compete over who can sound toughest on the failings of Parliament, there is no equivalent rhetoric of urgent reform applied to corporate governance.

Britons have billions invested in companies on which millions of livelihoods depend and no effective voice in how they are run. And yet there is no policy framework to fix this. Sir David's report describes the problem; it offers no serious solutions.

"While shareholders enjoy limited liability," he says delicately, "in the case of major banks the taxpayer has been obliged to assume effectively unlimited liability." In other words, people who might have stopped the credit crunch happening didn't. People who had no part in it are paying the price.

Sir David calls this "asymmetry". It would better be called a scandal and a disgrace.